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18 December 2002 From Sushila Kukathas in East Timor Mau Leke spends most of his waking hours at the construction site of a large concrete water tank, perched on slopes 700 metres above his village, Saboria. Aged 74, heavy work is out of the question, but he is still determined to lend a hand. "If our village wants to get clean water easily, I need to help," he says. "Otherwise we have to continue walking to the river," Mau Leke adds. Saboria is a secluded mountain village in the picturesque Aileu district to the south of the East Timorese capital, Dili. Residents are accustomed to the daily trek to bathe in the Manu Funi river nearly one kilometre away. During the dry season they often have to walk further. Today, led by a water sanitation crew from the East Timor Red Cross (CVTL), community volunteers such as Mau Leke are helping to build not only a water tank but also the first bathhouse and latrines for the village. According to CVTL team leader Januario da Silva, building the water system should take roughly three months. "But most villagers are busy during this time of year with the coffee harvest so finding volunteers can be a problem," he says. Like most of East Timor's rural population, local residents are subsistence farmers, whose livelihoods depend on their crops of rice, corn and organic coffee. Above Saboria, the spring that will soon feed the water sedimentation tank sits unprotected, contaminated by wild animals. Women also wash clothes near the water source. Not surprisingly, incidence of water borne diseases such as malaria and diarrhoea is high. Francisco Gusmao Ximenes, secretary general of CVTL, spells out the need to develop community health programmes to accompany water supply projects: "We need to teach villagers about hygiene, basic things like how to use a latrine. Usually they just go under trees, where the pigs go," he says, adding that funding will be crucial to ensure that the CVTL reaches rural communities with basic community-based first aid activities. Australia Red Cross (ARC) technical advisor Michelle Whalen, working with the CVTL to provide broad management support to the water sanitation programme, explains that the ARC aims to help the CVTL to reach a stage where it can manage the water sanitation project independently, without expatriate support. "I hope that from the water sanitation project, a CVTL rural programme will grow," she says, "and that the water sanitation programme is not seen as something separate." Completion of the gravity-fed water system, comprising sedimentation tank, tap-stands, bathhouse and latrines will give fourteen families, or more than 100 people, access to clean water for washing and bathing. Funding for the project including construction materials, and transport comes courtesy of AusAid. Once finished it will be the 68th such system built by the Red Cross in East Timor. Related links: East Timor: appeals updates and reports Water and Sanitation Make a donation |
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